Mark Warner visited Lebanon today and held a Town Hall conference. He briefly discussed rural broadband, a topic I'm very concerned with as I'm in the process of trying to bring high speed internet to my home, as well as a myriad of other topics ranging from partisanship in the senate to the fine print of the medical bill.
Mark and I agree on many topics, but I was disappointed to hear him say he wanted to see increased use of coal and natural gas and that natural gas was key to our energy future. Okay, I understand I live in South West Virgina and no politician can stop by without praising coal, but I was really hoping for a little more.
Hopefully it will all be a moot point and we'll have fusion to grant us cheap and abundant power in the near future. Carl Sagan and a few other scientists have said we'll likely see fusion over the next century. Hopefully we can hold out until then.
What do you think is the future of our energy production?
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You should recycle. It hurts my soul that you don't.
ReplyDeleteRecycling is like trying to prevent the titanic from sinking by throwing water over the side of the boat with thimbles full of water. Keep in mind that recycling requires additional energy and labor. I think our problem comes from the root: where our energy comes from. If we burn oil in order to fuel our recycling, we're simply dumping problems from one pot into another pot. At this point I am far more frightened of a runaway greenhouse effect than filling up more landfills. If we invest in solar, wind, geothermal and, eventually, fusion power, recycling would be a far better use of our efforts, but until then, I remain agnostic on the use of recycling.
ReplyDeleteI can see fusion happening within 20 years. By 2030 we'll have the computing power equivalent of a human brain (along will the parallel circuits required for normal brain function). If such a being can't figure out fusion, I don't know who can. We've already created the silicon equivalent of a wasp brain, previously it was an ant brain, and I heard about this a year ago so they very well may be up to something as complex as a lizard by now.
That's scary to me, because we haven't invested enough in biotechnology in order to prevent the division of biologic organisms and artificial organisms from happening. I don't think we'll bridge that gap in 20 years, and it will be necessary if we are to keep up with our own creations. If we're clever enough, maybe we'll make them have enough compassion to spend the time advancing our bodies as well as their own.
■Saves Energy - It usually takes less energy to make recycled products; recycled aluminum, for example, takes 95% less energy than new aluminum from bauxite ore.
ReplyDelete■Saves Clean Air and Water - In most cases, making products from recycled materials creates less air pollution and water pollution than making products from virgin materials.
■Saves Landfill Space - When the materials that you recycle go into new products, they don't go into landfills or incinerators, so landfill space is conserved.
■Saves Money and Creates Jobs - The recycling process creates far more jobs than landfills or incinerators, and recycling can frequently be the least expensive waste management method for cities and towns.
Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to operate a TV for 3 hours. Eco-Cycle
ReplyDeleteIf we recycled all of the newspapers printed in the U.S. on a typical Sunday, we would save 550,000 trees--or about 26 million trees per year. California Department of Conservation
The energy saved each year by steel recycling is equal to the electrical power used by 18 million homes each year - or enough energy to last Los Angeles residents for eight years. Steel Recycling Institute
If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 1,000 sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissues with 100% recycled ones, we could save: 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space, and 155 million gallons of water. Seventh Generation Co.
From the National Recycling Coalition:
ReplyDelete1. Good For Our Economy
American companies rely on recycling programs to provide the raw materials they need to make new products.
2. Creates Jobs
Recycling in the U.S. is a $236 billion a year industry. More than 56,000 recycling and reuse enterprises employ 1.1 million workers nationwide.
3. Reduces Waste
The average American discards seven and a half pounds of garbage every day. Most of this garbage goes into to landfills, where it's compacted and buried.
4. Good For The Environment
Recycling requires far less energy, uses fewer natural resources, and keeps waste from piling up in landfills.
5. Saves Energy
Recycling offers significant energy savings over manufacturing with virgin materials. (Manufacturing with recycled aluminum cans uses 95% less energy.)
6. Preserves Landfill Space
No one wants to live next door to a landfill. Recycling preserves existing landfill space.
7. Prevents Global Warming
In 2000, recycling of solid waste prevented the release of 32.9 million metric tons of carbon equivalent (MMTCE, the unit of measure for greenhouse gases) into the air.
8. Reduces Water Pollution
Making goods from recycled materials generates far less water pollution than manufacturing from virgin materials.
9. Protects Wildlife
Using recycled materials reduces the need to damage forests, wetlands, rivers and other places essential to wildlife.
10. Creates New Demand
Recycling and buying recycled products creates demand for more recycled products, decreasing waste and helping our economy.2.5.
Here's a little game to explain as well: http://www.epa.gov/recyclecity/
ReplyDelete